


Puzzled

by eris_of_imladris



Category: 999: Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors - Fandom, Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, POV Male Character, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sudoku
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 07:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14637348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eris_of_imladris/pseuds/eris_of_imladris
Summary: Adrian Carlisle finds a strange new job programming puzzles on a ship, but the extra task he is assigned is extra puzzling.





	Puzzled

Adrian needed a job badly enough that even the strange offer from the white-haired boy was enough for him. The pay was solid, enough to get him off his friend's couch and into a place of his own, and this was worth more than any of his suspicions. The kid looked younger than him by at least five years, but even though Adrian had never met him before, somehow he had heard about his degree, and knew that he was down on his luck. Adrian had agreed quickly, especially for that kind of money, but when he showed up for his first day of work in an odd building in the middle of the desert, he began to wonder what he was truly getting himself into.

The place was designed like some sort of amusement park, he noticed as he followed the boy through the passageways. but with a ship motif and absolutely no cheer. The boy introduced himself as Mister K, and he had only two rules: speak of this work to no one, and ask no questions.

Mister K had then explained some of the projects he would be working on - doors opening by certain mechanisms, puzzles to activate them - but before he could leave the small room made up to be the captain's quarters, Mister K had stopped him. "Every morning, you will find or make a sudoku puzzle for my sister," he said, and with no explanation and no way to ask about it, Adrian could only nod his head as a girl with long brown hair walked into the room, surveying him and nodding in return.

Miss K, Adrian soon learned, was the mastermind of the operation. It was she who knew where everything was supposed to go and what everything was supposed to look like, down to the colors of buttons and texture of floors. She roamed the place during the day, and she would often come by with a tap on the shoulder, explaining some sort of miniscule task he had gotten wrong. Behind her sweet tone, Mister K watched, his mouth a hard line.

And each morning, before the other employees even got there, Adrian would place a new sudoku puzzle on the table in the captain's room. He would sharpen the pencil and leave out some scrap paper, some receipt or note, to have space to solve. Even with a pencil, Miss K never let herself make a mistake. He took to watching her sometimes when other workers could handle his projects, and when she made a mistake, she took a long time to fix it, until about a minute before her timer would go off. Then, she would whirl through the rest of the puzzle, never letting the clock make a sound.

But one morning came when he was late, and finding another new sudoku had been the last thing on his mind after a fight with his new girlfriend. But when he got inside, Mister K waited for him by the door, fury in his eyes and anger in his voice. "Where is her sudoku?" he asked, and he stomped towards the captain's quarters, fiddling with his phone. He didn't seem to notice Adrian following until he opened the door, and then his entire demeanor changed. Gentler than anything Adrian had ever seen from him before, he laid the phone down gently next to the mass of brown hair atop crossed arms on the desk.

"I know it's on a phone, but it's the only one I've got," he said softly, stroking her hair back. Even from the hallway, Adrian could hear her breathing, fast and shallow, and his heart sank. She had never been anything less than kind to him - she would even ask him about his day after the last squares were filled - but now he walked forward to see her trembling, shoulders shaking as Mister K took her hand. "Show me where they go, Akane. Show me," he said, and after a few more repetitions, he heard a shaky "three" spilling from her lips, and he watched Mister K guide her finger across the phone, the timer forgotten.

"I'm so sorry," Adrian said when they finished, still rooted to his spot outside the door. "It won't happen again."

"No, it won't," Mister K said.

"Can I..." Adrian started, knowing he was breaking another rule, but it had been months and he had never tried to ask anything at all. "Why does she need a sudoku?"

"I don't know," Mister K replied, and Adrian could tell from the emptiness in his voice that he was telling the truth. Adrian left before the hardness in his eyes could return, and fled to a room with locked boxes and numbers, arranging them with no expectation of ever seeing the place or Miss K again.

But, much to his surprise, Miss K greeted him on the way out, nodding at his apologies, and continued to retain his services. She never mentioned that day, but she did not stop speaking to him, and still greeted him each morning when she made a beeline for the sudoku and pencil on the table. But one day, Miss K was gone, and a sudoku waited for him instead, the unsolved puzzle written on the back of a receipt in a feminine hand. He almost wondered if she was testing his own skill at the puzzle before he saw the small letters on the bottom: "Computer in incinerator. Button on right-hand wall." 

And then, as if the room with the dolls cut to pieces hadn't been creepy enough, he had to input the puzzle in the incinerator. It hardly fit the theme - why would a ship need to burn things on such a large scale? - but there were doors there, and a puzzle to input, and after the incident, he was not about to question this. It had to have been a punishment because he was always in there alone, in the metal octagon where even his footsteps seemed too loud. Sometimes he felt grateful for the squeak as the computer slid out of the floor, something besides his own breaths to bring a little life to the place.

He finished the programming early on a Wednesday morning and told Mister K it was ready to be looked at. He had witnessed a number of other evaluations - entire projects scrapped thanks to one word out of Miss K's mouth, or something tiny rearranged and a quick nod of approval. She had to touch everything, run her fingers over every surface, and even something as small as a splinter could be wrong and needing repairs. But when he came to tell them that the incinerator computer was ready for review, Miss K stiffened, and he wondered if he had done the wrong thing again. But Mister K nodded solemnly, and reached out his hand for hers. She looked like she was about to shake her head, hesitant and unsure, but then her fingers latched onto his, and they walked forward with no explanation.

The doors opened with a creak and Miss K released her brother's hand, revealing five little moon-shaped marks on his palm from her nails. She moved toward the puzzle and stretched out her hand to activate the mechanism, but she spoke instead of touching. "It's there," she said, and Mister K touched the button as if it was going to bite him. The computer rose from the ground, and Miss K stood her ground, watching it rise without a hitch.

"Touch the screen," she said, and Adrian could hear the slightest wavering in her voice, but Mister K hastened to obey. The screen lit up and her puzzle appeared, each number matching the drawn-on puzzle he had found. But there was no word of approval, or anything otherwise. Mister K just stood and looked, his eyes fixed on the screen as Miss K looked at him, a silent apology in her eyes. The inches between them were an ocean neither could breach.

The next morning, Mister K found him on his way to deliver the sudoku. "Your work is done here," he said, his voice thick, and Adrian was somehow surprised.

"Did I do it wrong?" he asked. "The puzzle in the incinerator?"

"No," Mister K said after a long pause. "But the construction is done, and we need to move forward with the project. I'm sure you understand."

Adrian didn't understand, but he nodded regardless, noticing that a large number of people seemed to be leaving that day. When he closed the door, he turned behind to see Mister K and Miss K standing side by side in the stairwell, proud yet afraid, and he realized they were the greatest puzzle of all.


End file.
